Letters to the Editor
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Apples and oranges cost different amounts.
Nonetheless, female college graduates who were full-time wage and salary workers had median earnings of $809 a week, compared with $1,089 for men."
809 divided by 1089 = 74%. That's among FULL TIME WORKERS, not all women. So, the fact that 9 million women don't work is not relevant, because we're comparing apples to apples here, full time workers, to full time workers. Non-working women are not included in the data, as you allege.
Apples and oranges. Non-comparable jobs. Not my fault that women want to take stupid jobs.
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Women's Jobs and Men's Jobs
Apart from the issue of family leave, there are still "women's jobs" and "men's jobs". Administrative assistants are invariably women, still, while other traditionally women's jobs such as nursing, food service and teaching, are attracting a smattering of men. These jobs pay less than the traditionally men's jobs such as management, law enforcement, and auto mechanics. While the hour-for-hour wage rate may the same for either a woman or a man in the same position, we will not have real gender equality until administrative assistants earn as much as auto mechanics. This won't happen until men become admin assistants in droves.
By the same reasoning, women will always be in the inferior workplace position until every father takes twelve weeks family leave every time a child is born, and let's not forget all the sick days moms use. How would a man's boss react when a male employee has to stay home with a fussy baby?
So women are more motivated to stay home with the sick kid? So what? What's wrong with that? What's wrong with a mom earning less than a dad because her attention is split?
I remember the days when mothers who worked did so because they had dead-beat husbands or other unusual economic challenges. These women had our sympathy.
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Whether it's because women take "women's jobs" is a different question
I was simply rebutting, and I think rather convincingly, Robert Franklin's assertion that half of the income disparity reported comes from the fact that 9 million women simply don't work. I think it's important to do that, if we're going to have a discussion grounded in facts in any way.
Robert Franklin is conspicuously absent. I thought he was a smart ma who would have the decency to admit he was wrong. Oh well.
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Why I earn less
Some of these reasons could happen to men as well as women; but my suspicion is women encounter them more frequently. I'm a "hungry" woman who wants to work in a job that challenges me and for which I have skills and experience, but which I can't get in a male-dominated field. I'm ambitious and I'm the primary breadwinner in my household (the only one, because my husband can't work). So I'm about as driven as I can imagine, and I haven't been able to make it happen in a decade.
- I earn less because when I push to earn what I am worth, I am rebuffed. The last two salaried pay rates I've been offered have both been, per salary.com, about 20% less than the appropriate wage for my job in my area with my level of expertise. This includes benefits, etc.; I'm actually better off (though not much) as a contractor and paying for insurance in full.
- I earn less because I have actually been hired at a promised return and receive less pay than I was promised. (It's been explained to me that I "must've misunderstood," although I know better. Having moved and incurred debt to get the job, I'm rather trapped by it now.)
- I earn less because I'm underemployed. I'm underemployed because in my male-dominated tech field, women (particularly attractive ones) are stereotyped as better for marketing and support jobs, and not technically demanding jobs.
- I earn less because when I've came up with an extremely useful, patent-worthy idea, it was handed off to a male coworker to "develop," because "men are better at that kind of thing." (Yes, that's why I came up with the idea.) I never got a chance to show my skills; there was no extra time to develop it on my own because I was already working 80 hour weeks, trying to perform the duties of five laid-off coworkers. (The work produced by the man in question showed an utter lack of comprehension of the complexities and potential of the concept, and it didn't go anywhere. Last week I saw the fulfillment by another company of my seven-year-old concept, which was both exhilarating as validation, and depressing as far as my personal career is concerned.)
- I earn less because my field is highly competitive, and you take the job you can, not the job you want. This applies to men and women, but I think given equal skills and experience, men are chosen more frequently than women for the jobs I want.
- I earn less because I'm married, and people don't understand a woman can be a primary breadwinner. People behave as though he's weak for being sick (gender stereotyping can hurt men, too!), and I'm aberrant in some way for wanting to support us both, rather than simply being a supportive spouse. My conservative staffing firm rep has actually said I deserve a husband that can "look after me," as if that were a sympathetic compliment, rather than offensive to both my spouse and me. Part of this may spring from culture, since the firm and the rep. are based in a country that still reveres "traditional" gender roles.
Anonymous because though I'm underemployed and underpaid for my underemployment, I still need my job.
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Memo to Tracy
It is rooted in biology. But it is statistical. Take the statement "men are taller than women". It is only true in a statistical sense.
Conservatives talk nonsense when they argue that men SHOULD be taller than women. They refuse to see that many people have preferences that do not conform to their gender averages. This is what's wrong with believing in gender roles--everyone gets lumped in the same box.
Radical feminists talk nonsense when they say that we need to find ways to make men shorter in order to bring about a more gender balanced world. These people should take a few minutes to read Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron".
The complicated twist in the wage gap debate is that employers might stereotype female employees as being more likely to take time off, quit, or have competing priorities. A view that happens to match reality, but is hardly true for everyone. There is little we can do to fix this other than just encouraging women to be very clear about their strong commitment to their jobs in interviews and reviews.
The best way for women to keep their careers on the front burner is for them to marry men who are happy to put their careers on the back burner. It bugs me when women snag a high income super successful man, and then complain they are forced to pick up the slack on the home-front.
Side-note to LeCastor. It's not just the number of hours. Its also types of jobs. And it's all voluntary. So don't bury yourself so deep on a losing battle--the wage gap is a myth.